Check in here for strategies on completing the Daily and Weekly Challenges in Halo: Reach. If it’s your first time, click through the About HRD link above; and add comments below if you’ve got a good idea of your own for tackling the Challenges today.

***NEW WEEKLY CHALLENGE!***

VIDEO OF THE WEEK: MANEX MONDAY

Our friends over at the ManeX Gaming Channel on YouTube put together an incredibly interesting Video Of The Week for us this time around: game commentary for a new player who’s only been on XBox and Halo for a short while. The MXG lads look at the things he does right, the things he does wrong, and a number of habits that you probably take for granted but might actually want to rethink yourself. Check it out!

The ManeX Monday feature provides clips not of specific Challenges, but of key tactics and techniques intended to help make you a better player across ALL your Challenges. Subscribe to the Channel to get notified of updates, or follow it on Twitter here. Thanks again, guys!

Our regular Screenshot Of The Day returns tomorrow. So if you haven’t done it already, yo: Send your screenshots to haloreachdaily@live.com, or just make a file recommendation to us on XBox (Gamertag: Ender Xer0, with a zero), and we’ll take care of the rest. Remember: we’re not looking for Forge art or random pix from the Internet; it should be a screenshot of YOU!

FIRE WHEN READY

The Ancient Aztecs were a great civilization. But they didn’t play Grifball, and they died. Don’t be an Aztec! Also, you’ll get the Fire When Ready Challenge really quickly, and tank through your Oops! All Kills and Credits For Completion Challenges (see below) at the same time. Yow! (Grifballin’ courtesy of SinisterSin.)

COOK ‘EM, CLEAN ‘EM!

This Challenge is why you’ll see so many people jetpacking through Multiplayer today. If you’re a seasoned jetpacker, you won’t need any advice from here; if you’re not, it’s still going to be easy as hell.

To earn the Firebird Medal — and thus notch a kill toward the Daily Challenge — you need only be airborne from the moment you fire your final shot to when the game registers the kill; you don’t have to actually jetpack the entire gunfight.

That means you can move and fight as usual, and simply hit the jetpack as you take your killshot. (Which, in fact, is precisely what we recommend — it’s dead simple, and you’ll hardly need change your fighting style at all.) In fact, you can even hover just an inch aboveground, with barely any daylight between the floor and your boots, for your Firebird Medal to register.

It’ll also register with melees, assassinations, and weapons like Hammers and Swords; and with those weapons, you’ll even lunge pretty much the same as if your feet still touched the ground. Again, just hit your jetpack an instant before you strike and the Challenge point will register.

It won’t register, however, if you’re not actively “thrusting” when you make your kill; finish your enemy off while only in freefall and you’ll score an ordinary kill, not a Challenge point. So make sure you’re thrusting when you, ah, unload.

Unless you’re an experienced jetpacker, avoid the larger, open maps (Powerhouse, Forge World) in favor of tighter, smaller ones (Sword Base, Zealot, Countdown), even if that sounds counter-intuitive. It’s real easy to get shot out of the sky if you don’t know what you’re doing, and a close-quarters map allows you to fight almost normally, jetpacking for a moment only as you close the deal.

Rumble Pit used to be your best bet for this Challenge, since basically you could fire at anything while boosting, but Dino Blasters in Action Sack has somehow made it even easier — spawning you with a jetpack as well as a Concussion Rifle with a bottomless clip. Yeah!

Grifball remains your best bet: You can score a Double-Kill with a single hammer swing, and all other things being equal you should register the Challenge just by happenstance. Not a fan of the orange dude with the bomb? Well, OK, you’re weird, but whatever:

Head instead into Rumble Pit or Multi-Team; more enemies on smaller maps = more multikills.

Vote for gametypes on tighter maps that encourage enemies to converge into single flashpoints: King Of The Hill and Oddball, for example. Spam grenades into the hotzone, followed by DMR or Magnum headshots and the occasional coup-de-grace melee rush. Avoid the area yourself, however; no sense adding your corpse to the fiesta.

If you’re not having much luck in the Pit, get a friend and head into Multi-Team; it’s like Rumble Pit With Partners, and your enemies usually travel in pairs or threes — almost as if they’re asking to all get killed together, yes? So, coordinate with your teammates: team-shoot one enemy, then whoever doesn’t score the final shot can melee or plasma-burst another, setting up the Multi-Kill.

Big Team Battle and Invasion also offer Multi-Kill opportunities: taking out a vehicle with passenger, or a pair of enemies in the unlock zone of an Invasion phase, seem like good bets. Your main problem, however, will be not your enemies but your allies — with so many players on each side, you’ll have considerable competition among your teammates to actually score those kills.

NOTE: The Challenge tracks your progress by keeping track of medals; that means a Double-Kill that stacks into a Triple and eventually an Overkill nets you three Challenge points, not just one. Pretty good, eh?

CREDITS FOR COMPLETION

Yes, you really can earn this by doing absolutely nothing for four games; it’s hard to call it a “Challenge” when the only requirement is that your controller doesn’t turn off. (And even then.) But, hey, it’s 1400 free cRedits, and you’ll probably pocket the games simply by handling the other Dailies and Weekly Challenge. So don’t complain, eh?

Scoring 1K kills in one week sounds like an insurmountable task for which there are no shortcuts, but only the second half of that is right. The number seems conquerable only by the truly skilled or truly crazed; but, with all week to run your counter up, it becomes implausible only if you leave it to the very end.

One thousand divides not-so-neatly into 143 kills per day — an eminently manageable number, considering you’ve already completed Daily Challenges that required you to register up to 150 names in the dead-book. Notching that once per day simply turns this into a fifth Daily Challenge, with the massive payoff for all seven days at the end of the week.

Also: Though we don’t know what they are yet, several upcoming Daily Challenges — like all of today’s Challenges — will likely require you to stack Multiplayer bodies, so you’ll work this one automatically as you wrap up the Dailies during the week.

Most importantly, however, don’t talk yourself out of this simply because it’s intimidating. With the Bungie-sized bonus at the end of the week, each kill will net you an additional 15 cRedits; considering that a standard kill only awards you 4 cR, you’ll be nearly quadrupling your cRedit reward for your next thousand kills — but only if you finish. You’re a Spartan, okay? “Impossible” is a word for ODSTs.

Check in here for strategies on completing the Daily and Weekly Challenges in Halo: Reach. If it’s your first time, click through the About HRD link above; and add comments below if you’ve got a good idea of your own for tackling the Challenges today.

SCREENSHOT OF THE DAY

SCREENSHOT OF THE DAY: TB0NE4

Screenshot Of The Day this morning courtesy of TB0NE4, who reminds me of that saying: In Hollywood, a friend is someone who stabs you in the front. Thanks for being a friend, TBone! Everyone, click to enlarge!

Meanwhile, if you haven’t done it already, yo: Send your screenshots to haloreachdaily@live.com, or just make a file recommendation to us on XBox (Gamertag: Ender Xer0, with a zero), and we’ll take care of the rest. Remember: we’re not looking for plain Forge art or random pix from the Internet; it should be a screenshot of YOU!

Check in here for strategies on completing the Daily and Weekly Challenges in Halo: Reach. If it’s your first time, click through the About HRD link above; and add comments below if you’ve got a good idea of your own for tackling the Challenges today.

SCREENSHOT OF THE DAY

SCREENSHOT OF THE DAY: BadassVin JAD

Screenshot Of The Day today courtesy of BadassVin JAD, who shows that you can still look cool even when getting blown to bacon bits. Thanks, Vin! Everyone, click to enlarge!

Meanwhile, if you haven’t done it already, yo: Send your screenshots to haloreachdaily@live.com, or just make a file recommendation to us on XBox (Gamertag: Ender Xer0, with a zero), and we’ll take care of the rest. Remember: we’re not looking for plain Forge art or random pix from the Internet; it should be a screenshot of YOU!

Check in here for strategies on completing the Daily and Weekly Challenges in Halo: Reach. If it’s your first time, click through the About HRD link above; and add comments below if you’ve got a good idea of your own for tackling the Challenges today.

NOTE: WEEKLY CHALLENGE LAST DAY!

SCREENSHOT OF THE DAY

SCREENSHOT OF THE DAY: Bark At The Moo

Screenshot Of The Day this morning courtesy of Bark At The Moo (yes, you read that right), who fights on while under heavy fire, the way a Spartan should. Woof! Thanks, Bark! Everyone, click to enlarge!

Send your screenshots to haloreachdaily@live.com, or just make a file recommendation to us on XBox (Gamertag: Ender Xer0, with a zero), and we’ll take care of the rest. Remember: we’re not looking for Forge art or pix from the Internet; it should be a screenshot of YOU!

DAILY CHALLENGES

Summary

TYPES: Assists, Kills, Killstyle, Special Weapon

SETTINGS: Campaign, Firefight

AVERAGE DIFFICULTY: Grind

TOTAL TIME: 45-60 minutes

AVERAGE VALUE: ★★★★☆

TOTAL CREDITS: 6700

ONE SPARTAN ARMY

Though it’s easy enough to get your Gruntpocalypse on for a three-game kill-count, you’re already going to plough through a few enemy platoons as part of notching the Friend In Need Challenge (see below). To save time, take on the other ones first, then simply Grunt your way through any leftovers. It should take you only one or two matches, depending on how many Covies you great-journeyed beforehand.

A FRIEND IN NEED

This is actually harder than it sounds, though made more manageable by the generously low number needed. The underlying problem: most Firefight enemies — Grunts and Jackals — go down so easy that it’s difficult to coordinate an Assist without killing them outright. Even shattering a Jackal’s energy buckler with a plasma burst won’t register, since it’s not calculated as actual “damage” to the enemy.

Complicating matters is that there are so many of them — an Assist requires at least 40% damage to the target’s combined Shields and Health, and then for a teammate finish the kill within five seconds of your last strike. With Covies swarming the map, it’s less likely an ally will be firing on the same one, at the same time, as you.

When tougher enemies do arrive fashionably late, they’re often too few or too resilient to rack up too many Assists. A Hunter, for example, often involves all teammates ripping into him at once, making it less likely any single player will strip off more than 40% before the beast goes down.

Plasma Pistol: The Assist's Assistant.

Brutes represent more solid candidates for Assist-farming: a steady DMR stream will remove their helmets, setting them up for a teammate’s coup-de-grace. The problem isn’t so much that Brutes don’t know how to put their hats back on; it’s that most don’t carry regenerative Shields, so you won’t know how much damage one’s taken already. Plus higher-ranking Brutes require more setup, making it difficult to gauge when you’ve crossed the 40% mark.

With all that in mind, your best bet remains to target Elites, crashing their Shields with an overcharged Plasma Pistol for a teammate to close the deal. The Dinos — while otherwise remarkably crafty — for some reason stand and howl when they lose their Shields like a pro wrestler who just lost to the guy with the folding chair, giving an ally an easy headshot.

The problem eases up once the Mythic Skull powers on, since that doubles enemy health, including for even the lowliest DMR fodder; but — because they don’t have regenerating shields — it’ll still be difficult to gauge when you’ve peeled a Grunt or Jackal by 40%. So, better to keep steady with what’s worked for you rather than shift strategies in the middle of the match.

You can also steal cheap Assists throughout the match by targeting a Phantom’s main gun: taking it out registers a kill, so damaging it — a single sniper shot, or several with the DMR — will generate an Assist; you can even take care of it as the Dropship approaches, before it empties its troops, so you won’t have a Wave of Covies firing on you. With three Rounds of play now in Firefight, that’s 30 Dropships; more than enough to notch the Challenge.

And, by all means, go in with a friend if possible; coordinating with a partner will cut down on both your Challenge times, taking turns flashing an Elite’s shields while the other readies a headshot. It’ll be the one time when the Firefight playlist actually becomes cooperative.

THERE ARE MANY LIKE IT. . .

Load up any Campaign level on Normal that offers a precision weapon plus lots o’ Grunts, and get to work.

ONI Sword Base features a DMR start and opens in the middle of a firefight, plus there’s a Sniper Rifle at the end of the base-side Terrace for pwning Elites once you’ve cleared the Jackals and Grunts. Winter Contingency at Rally Point Bravo literally drops you into a Fodder-O-Rama of a firefight; and though you enter with an Assault Rifle, a DMR conveniently awaits your weapon swap on the asphalt leading to the rear bunker, with more ammo for it inside the bunker as well.

(Nightfall, of course, spawns you with a Sniper, but you just did that Challenge yesterday; do you really want to hear Jun telling you to “do it quiet” again? Anyway, take yer pick.)

Concentrate on headshots against Grunts and Jackals, since those award extra Medal cR, and don’t waste DMR ammo on the Elites — you’ll run out of enemies before hitting the century mark and need to revert the Checkpoint anyway; so unless you feel like sniping, you might as well do it as soon as you’ve cleaned slate on the lesser Covies.

If you run low on ammo, simply swipe Needle Rifles from the fallen Jackals; they’ll register precision kills as easily as the DMR, but heading into a bunker for a DMR reload can trigger a Checkpoint, meaning you’d have to settle for a full level restart.

ROAST ‘EM, TOAST ‘EM

Your quickest, easiest Challenge of the day. Open up Rally Point Alpha on Exodus, then head outside to swap your devastating Magnum of Doom with a Rocket Launcher of Even More Doom from one of the Marines by the ammo case.

Strap on a Jetpack at the far end of the walkway and Rocketeer your way to the platform with the bad guys. Glide up over them — they’re neatly clustered in a pack, for your raining-death-from-above pleasure — and fire away.

Keep in mind that the Challenge counts Firebird Medals, which require your jetpack to actually thrust at the moment of the kill; if you’re in freefall, the kill won’t count, even if you’re still airborne. And, if you get yourself killed or run out of rockets, simply reload from the last Checkpoint and repeat; the Challenge counter keeps running.

Rate this:

TRANSMIT INTEL:

Like this:

Check in here for strategies on completing the Daily and Weekly challenges in Halo: Reach. If it’s your first time, click through the About HRD link above; and add comments below if you’ve got a good idea of your own for tackling the Challenges today.

SCREENSHOT OF THE DAY

SCREENSHOT OF THE DAY: ender4449

Screenshot Of The Day today courtesy of ender4449. Yes, there’s an entire clan of Enders; we also shower together when no one’s looking. (Just kidding; you can look.)

Send your screenshots to haloreachdaily@live.com, or just make a file recommendation to us on XBox (Gamertag: Ender Xer0, with a zero), and we’ll take care of the rest. Remember: we’re not looking for Forge art or pix from the Internet; it should be a screenshot of YOU!

DAILY CHALLENGES

Summary

TYPES: Kills, Assists, Jetpack, Target Locator

SETTINGS: Firefight, Multiplayer, Any

TOTAL CREDITS: 3450

AVERAGE DIFFICULTY: Easy

SHOOTIN’ AND LOOTIN’

Any Game Mode

Kills

Type: KillsSetting: AnyDifficulty: EasyReward: 1500

Kill 150 enemies in any game mode in Reach.

Take on this one last. You’ll rack up some kills — and maybe all of them — simply by tackling today’s other Daily Challenges, so there’s no point duplicating your efforts.

For your leftover kills, by far the easiest method of mayhem remains the opening of the Campaign’s ONI Sword Base mission. If you know it and don’t like the stigma of naked credit boosting, skip down. If you don’t know it, you can find a detailed rundown in the Owning On ONI standing link on the top of this page.

But, if you don’t like the open credit farming that goes with Target Locating, simply rack up some quick kills in a Custom Game instead. Click on the Grunt Game Settings link at the top of the page for instructions on the best settings; you’ll also find a Custom Game there already set up for you.

Alternately, take a scan of your Commendations progress, particularly in Firefight. If you’re close on anything relevant — say, for example, headshots or close-quarter kills — use the Custom Games option but change the weapon or enemy settings to fit, and increase your damage while reducing the enemies’ resistance; you’ll work your Commendations at the same time that you register Daily Challenge kills. For Campaign, load a Level or Rally Point that works your Commendation progress, and your Daily Challenge kills will simply come along for the ride.

A GREAT FRIEND

Multiplayer

Assists

Type: AssistsSetting: MultiplayerDifficulty: GrindReward: 900

Earn 15 assists today in Multiplayer Matchmaking.

Working toward Assists can always be a hassle, since your natural instincts and gaming skills focus on putting down your enemies, not passing the kill off to another player; nobody makes the highlight reel by almost scoring 15 times. Despite that, Bungie intends to pay you today to help out players who haven’t really earned it as they cash in on your setup.

You’ll be able to work the Shootin’ And Lootin’ Challenge at the same time — not to mention the Weekly Challenge — so there’s some consolation in that. Just click on the Assist-O-Rama standing link at the top of the page for our in-depth guide to Not Closing The Deal.

ORBITAL ASSISTS

Firefight

Special Weapon

Kills

Type: KillsSetting: FirefightDifficulty: MediumReward: 750

Kill 20 enemies using the Target Designator in Firefight Matchmaking.

Dear Bungie: It’s called the Target Locator. Not Designator. Locator. Say it with me.

Your most difficult Challenge of the day, if only for pure mathematics. You’ve got four Sprinting Spartans, just Three Ordinance Drops, and only one of you will lay your hands on it anyway.

The good news, of course, is that under the new Firefight settings, you’ll have three Rounds to snag it, which still doesn’t guarantee success on average but does skitch the odds more in your favor. You also no longer need worry about Friendly Fire, so the days of douchebags dashing into your Red Ring of Death to force a betrayal boot (and then recovering the Locator when they respawn) have thankfully ended.

If you do snare it (yay), stay focused and use patience before locking a target area; your chance of scoring double-Killionaires fall somewhere between hitting the lottery and finding a worthwhile match of Living Dead, so you’ll likely need at least three shots to rack the Challenge — and the Locator, inconveniently, fires only two. That means retrieving it in at least two different Rounds, which represents a huge hassle already; so, when you do have it, don’t be careless.

Once you’ve acquired it, retreat for some cover, scan for a high position with a clear line of sight to the Dropship zone, then wait for a tactical corridor to open before making your move. It took you long enough to lay your hands on this goddamn thing, you don’t want to get killed en route.

When finally in position, play defensively, picking off bad guys who become too interested but keeping a low profile — you’ll be scoring your heavy points soon enough. Also don’t jump the gun when you do fire: some enemy drops consist of only a small squad of Covies, so don’t cycle up the targeting beam until they hit the ground — otherwise, you might burn through a charge with only an Overkill. Of course, when it does look like you’d waste a shot, just release the trigger to power down.

Tip Of The Day

If you do blow the shot, however, there remains a little-known fact about the Target Locator that will help you lock down this Challenge: Ever wonder why the Locator remains the only weapon in all of Halo that you can actually pick up when it’s empty?

That’s because (dramatic pause) IT’S NOT REALLY EMPTY.

If you hang onto it through the Boss Wave, the Locator will fully recharge when the new Round begins, and you’ll start with two shots again. It’s the kind of thing that never came up when Firefights lasted only one Round; now that they’re three, the bonus shots are all yours.

This also means you can even ditch an “empty” Locator in a strategic location, fight on with a second weapon, then recover it before the Fifth Wave ends. (If you don’t, the map may reset it, since it likely allows only one Locator at a time.) In fact, it’s actually preferable to stash it; if you meet an unlucky end out in the field, you’ll need to scavenge for it as Waves of Heroic enemies attempt to end you again.

Or, if you keep track of the teammate who scored the Locator, you can even still snag it yourself: Most players abandon it when the charge flatlines, so if you shadow him after he fires, you can snap up his discard just like found money. And, of course, if you do come across an empty, hit your pickup button right away and head for a stash-point.

One final NOTE: Look for a larger, open map, where it’s less likely you’ll be swarmed as your Locator charges up; and by all means, avoid Corvette — it’s an indoor map in outer space, so no Orbital Strikes, yeah?

This Challenge is why you’ll see so many people jetpacking through Multiplayer today. If you’re a seasoned jetpacker, you won’t need any advice from here; if not, it’s still going to be easy as hell.

To earn the Firebird Medal — and thus notch a point toward the Daily Challenge — you only need to be airborne from the moment of your final shot to the moment the game registers the kill; you don’t have to actually be jetpacking the entire gunbattle.

That means you can move and fight as usual, simply hitting the jetpack as you aim your killshot. (Which, actually, is precisely what we recommend — it’s dead simple, and you hardly need change your fighting style at all.) In fact, you can even hover just an inch aboveground, with barely any daylight between the floor and your boots, for your Firebird Medal to register.

It’ll also register with melees, assassinations, and weapons like Hammers and Swords; and with those weapons, you’ll even lunge pretty much the same as if you were grounded. Again, just hit the jetpack the moment before you strike, and the Challenge meter will tick forward.

It won’t register, however, if you’re not actively “thrusting” when you make your kill; finish him off while in freefall and you’ll score an ordinary kill, not one that advances the Challenge. So make sure you’re thrusting when you, ah, unload.

Since the Challenge only requires five kills, Rumble Pit remains your best bet, and you can take them all in a single game — there’ll be that many more enemies over most Team games, and with more chance to pocket cleanup kills.

Unless you’re an experienced jetpacker, avoid the larger, open maps (Powerhouse, Forge World) in favor of tighter, smaller ones (Sword Base, Zealot, Countdown), even if that sounds counter-intuitive. It’s real easy to get shot out of the sky if you don’t know what you’re doing, and a close-quarters map allows you to fight almost normally, jetpacking for a moment only as you close the deal.

WEEKLY CHALLENGE

CLEAR EYES, FULL HEARTS

Multiplayer

Win

Type: WinsSetting: MultiplayerDifficulty: GrindReward: 5000

Win 50 games in Multiplayer Matchmaking this week.

Just like it sounds: play enough games and you’ll rack up 50 wins. That divides almost evenly into seven wins per day; considering that last week’s Home Field Advantage Challenge required eight wins, this one’s just a fifth Daily Challenge that you get paid for at the end of the week.

TAKE NOTE, however: Despite what it may say on your Reach game stats page over at Bungie.net, simply finishing in the top half of a Free-For-All game will NOT register as a win for your Challenge progress here — you’ll need to place First, or not at all.

Likewise, avoid any Objective gametypes that frequently end in a tie — Capture The Flag or Assault, for example — since although your game score registers a win for both sides (that is, you both came in “first”), the Weekly Challenge is not so generous; either one team takes the top spot, or both sides lose.

Retarded? Sure. Just think of it like that airhead girl you’ve got to put up with just so she’ll, you know…give you 5,000 cR at the end of the date. Anyway, both of these glitches mean that Team Slayer gametypes become your best option:

Avoid Big Team Battle and Invasion; though generally worth more cRedits, they also take longer, and you’re targeting wins here, not just cR. Plus, you can spend twice as much time in a Big Team game and still have a 50% chance of finishing without any Challenge progress; two smaller-squad games will earn just as many credits in the same time, but double your chances at a win.

If you’re a weaker player, you can still play a support role to earn the Challenge. Stick by at least one of your comrades to help him team-shoot, watching his back and providing cover fire. Play defensively, helping allies with assists rather than charging in for a big kill; finishing with a low score but only a few deaths is far more important than letting the other team run up their number by stacking your corpses.

Rate this:

TRANSMIT INTEL:

Like this:

Check in here for strategies on completing the Daily and Weekly challenges in Halo: Reach. If it’s your first time, click through the About HRD link above; and add comments below if you’ve got a good idea of your own for tackling the Challenges today.

DAILY CHALLENGES

SHOOTIN’ AND LOOTIN’

Any Game Mode

Kills

Type: KillsSetting: AnyDifficulty: EasyReward: 1500

Kill 150 enemies in any game mode in Reach.

Take on this one last. You’ll rack up some kills simply by tackling today’s other Daily Challenges, so there’s no point duplicating your efforts.

For your leftover kills, by far the easiest method of mayhem remains the opening of the Campaign’s Oni Sword Base mission. If you know it and don’t like the stigma of naked credit boosting, skip down. If you don’t know it, you can find a detailed rundown in the Owning On ONI standing link on the top of this page.

But, if you don’t like the open credit farming that goes with Target Locating, simply rack up some quick kills in a Custom Game instead. Click on the Grunt Game Settings link at the top of the page for instructions on the best settings; you’ll also find a Custom Game there already set up for you.

PASS THE ROCK

Multiplayer

Assists

Type: AssistsSetting: MultiplayerDifficulty: GrindReward: 1000

Earn 20 assists today in Multiplayer Matchmaking.

NOTE: Remember that maddening glitch from last month, when this Challenge required you to score your Assists before your first death, and then the counter stopped until your next game? Yeah, well, that’s been fixed. Rack up your Assists and get killed with reckless abandon, they’ll all still count toward the Challenge.

Working toward Assists can always be a hassle, since your natural instincts and gaming skills focus on putting down your enemies, not passing the kill off to another player. Nobody makes the highlight reel by almost scoring 20 times.

Despite that, Bungie intends to pay you today to help out other players who haven’t really earned it. Click on the Assist-O-Rama standing link at the top of the page for our in-depth guide to Not Closing The Deal.

ROAST ‘EM, TOAST ‘EM

Campaign

Jetpacking

Kills

Type: KillsSetting: CampaignDifficulty: EasyReward: 600

Kill 10 enemies while jet-packing in Exodus on Normal.

A Challenge that you’ll finish so fast it’ll probably take you more time to load the map.

Open up Rally Point Alpha on Exodus, then head outside to swap your devastating Magnum of Doom with a Rocket Launcher of Even More Doom from one of the Marines lingering by the ammo case.

Strap on a Jetpack at the far end of the walkway and Rocketeer your way over to the platform with the bad guys. Glide up over them — they’re neatly clustered in a pack, for your raining-death-from-above pleasure — and fire away.

Keep in mind that the Challenge counts Firebird Medals, which require you to be actually thrusting at the moment of the kill; if you’re in freefall, the kill won’t count, even if you’re still airborne. And, if you get yourself killed or run out of rockets, simply reload from the last Checkpoint and repeat; the Challenge counter keeps running.

Head into Score Attack and load up a standard Firefight match; the map won’t matter, but you’ll find a smaller one like Corvette or Courtyard lets you wrap things up more quickly. Select Spectre as your loadout (Camo plus Grenade Launcher) and fire away.

Remember that the Grenade Launcher allows you to delay detonation by holding the trigger, so you can either set a landmine for the advancing Grunts, or simply time your explosion for maximum effect as you fire into the pack. Also switch on your Active Camo ahead of time, and the Grunts won’t know what hit ’em.

WEEKLY CHALLENGE

MULTIPLICATIVE

Multiplayer

Multikill

Type: MultikillsSetting: MultiplayerDifficulty: GrindReward: 2000

Earn 45 Multikills in Multiplayer Matchmaking this week.

Okay, relax. This isn’t as hard as it sounds: If you started on Monday, then you need to score only seven Multikills per day, you’ll still wrap this up with half a day to spare. You’ll run into trouble only if you leave this until the end; and considering that previous Challenges have required you to score seven in a single day, this isn’t much more than a fifth Daily Challenge, with the payout postponed till the end of the week.

If you’re starting today, you’ll need to average nine — not as easy, true, but not off the charts either. Just stick to it and you’ll cross the finish line.

Spend most of your time in Rumble Pit. More enemies on smaller maps = more Multikills.

Vote for gametypes on small, tight maps that encourage enemies to converge into single flashpoints: King Of The Hill and Oddball, for example. Spam grenades into the hotzone, followed by DMR or Magnum headshots and the occasional coup-de-grace melee rush. Avoid the area yourself, however; no sense adding your corpse to the fiesta.

Juggernaut represents a mixed bag: If you’ve got the Hammer, you’ll have an excellent opportunity to skullcrush your way to multiple Multikills. If you’re not Jugs, you won’t be able to score any. Seek out power weapons like Rockets that can deal massive damage to the Juggernaut from a distance; and even without them, steer clear of close-combat to nickel-and-dime your target from range — if you’re lucky, you’ll score the last shot, and get the Hammer for your efforts.

If you’re not having much luck in the Pit, get with a friend and head into Multiteam; it’s like Rumble Pit With Partners, and your enemies usually travel in pairs, making them choice Double-Kills. Coordinate with your teammate: team-shoot one enemy, then whoever doesn’t score the final shot can melee or plasma-burst the second, setting up a Multikill.

Big Team Battle and Invasion also offer prime Multikill targets: a vehicle with passenger, or a pair of enemies in the unlock zone of an Invasion phase, for example. Your main problem will not be enemies, but allies: with so many players on each side, you’ll have considerable competition to actually score the kills.

NOTE: Unlike some of the Challenges from last month, chaining Multikills together here WILL register multiple points on your Challenge meter. The coding counts Medals, not actual kills; so, while a previous Overkill didn’t register a second Double-Kill Medal — and thus counted as only one point for the DK Challenge — this Challenge registers ANY Multikill Medal. This means a Double-Kill that stacks into a Triple-Kill and eventually an Overkill nets you three Challenge points, not just one.

Rate this:

TRANSMIT INTEL:

Like this:

Check in here for strategies on completing the Daily and Weekly challenges in Halo: Reach. If it’s your first time, click through the About HRD link above; and add comments below if you’ve got a good idea of your own for tackling the Challenges today.

DAILY CHALLENGES

(Apologies for the late posting today, but after yesterday’s controversy over the Pass The Rock challenge, we wanted to test these out ourselves and make sure they worked the way Bungie claimed.)

SHOOTIN’ AND LOOTIN’

Any Game Mode

Kills

Type: KillsSetting: AnyDifficulty: EasyReward: 1000

Kill 100 enemies in any game mode in Reach.

Normally, we’d recommend using a Custom Game like Gruntmaggedon (see the Game Settings tab above) for a quick and easy body pile, but since the kill-count here is so low, you’ll score it anyway just by tackling the other Challenges today. (“Covenant-cide” and “Cook ‘Em, Clean ‘Em” add up to 100 right there.)

After the drama surrounding yesterday’s Challenges, it’s good to see one that won’t require you to even pay attention.

COVENANT-CIDE

Firefight

Kills

Type: KillsSetting: FirefightDifficulty: EasyReward: 1000

Kill 90 enemies in Firefight Matchmaking.

A relatively simple Challenge that you can get just by playing enough, though you can save time using the right game mode. Gruntpocalypse in Score Attack represents your best bet, since you can dispatch the Grunts quickly and there won’t be anyone else to score them out from under you. For added fun, pretend the Grunts are all named Justin Bieber.

If Gruntpocalypse bores you — and how could it possibly? — any Sniperfight remains a favorite here at HRD, since the one-shot-kill on most enemies approximates the Grunt genocide with just a little more variety. In both cases, focus on headshots at all times: Firefight rewards you for medals earned, so your cRedit count will thank you for it.

Rocketfight remains another contender, but though you can nuke huge crowds of Covies as they spill from Dropships toward their fiery doom, the survivors will actually disperse pretty quickly, and you can spend as much time reloading (and respawning, if you’re not careful on the trigger) as you will actually blowing them up. And with three other players angling for the kills, you’ll often find your rockets showing up late to the party, so it’s really not as satisfying as you might imagine.

Also avoid the standard Firefights, since although they feature Ordinance Drops with neat-o weapons like Snipers and Rockets, you won’t have unlimited ammo with them; and three other players will be Sprinting for the Target Locator as well, so it’s more likely than not that you won’t be the one to score a Killionaire by bringing the thunder.

STREAKY SHOOTER

Multiplayer

Spree

Type: SpreeSetting: MultiplayerDifficulty: DifficultReward: 1000

Earn 10 sprees in Multiplayer Matchmaking.

This will be your most engaging Challenge today, and the one you’ll spend the most time completing. Sprees — five-in-a-row medals, all without dying — can sometimes be a bit tricky to come by, often depending not just on your own skill but the skill of your opponents or the skill of your teammates, or both.

The good news is that in Reach, Bungie has created a Spree medal for virtually everything. We’re accustomed to the Killing Spree and the occasional Sword or Shotgun Spree; but now there are Wheelman Sprees, Laser Sprees, Assist Sprees, and even Teabag and Rage Quit Sprees. (Though we’re pretty sure the medal for that last one is a Quit-Ban. Also, there’s probably not a Teabag Spree. Yet.)

How and where you get these Sprees depends entirely on your playstyle. If you prefer close-quarters combat, hunt out the Sword on a tight map and slash your way to bonus credits; if you like playing Infection — and *cough cough* who doesn’t? — there are even Sprees for blasting five Zombies or infecting five Humans in a row.

Just a few things to keep in mind:

In Objective games, the counter for Sprees doesn’t carry over from Round to Round. Thus, get four kills in each Round of 1-Flag game without dying, and you won’t score any Sprees for the match even though you went 16-0. Contrast this with an Invasion game, which has Phases set up separate and apart from Rounds, and in which the counter does carry over from Phase to Phase.

Some weapons will trigger two Sprees at once; for example, the Sword, Sniper and Hammer, since you’ll earn a Spree with the weapon in addition to your naked killstreak. Though we haven’t had a chance to test this out ourselves, we’re told that these twin-streaks actually earn you two notches toward your Daily Challenge, so you’ll particularly want to keep these in mind; likewise, the extended-streak awards — Killing Frenzy, Slice ‘N’ Dice, and so on — should score you and additional notch as well.

If for some reason you’re still having Spree trouble and it’s running late in the day, you’ve got a few more options:

Hop in a Warthog with a friend — preferably one who’s a good gunner — and joyride him around while he blazes metal. You’ll be working toward a Wheelman Spree, with the added possibility of a Splatter Spree as well. Don’t do it, though, if you’ve already notched a few kills in a row: because Reach has nerfed most vehicles into rolling deathtraps, you’re more likely to get blown to bits (by gunfire, Armor Lock, a flying traffic cone) before you land a good splatter or two, and your killstreak will end in its tracks.

Despite this rolling-deathtrap observation, heavy vehicles can still be good for a few essential kills before they hit the scrapyard, especially against other vehicles. Hop in a Wraith or Revenant and play it conservatively, waiting for the other team to make its rush; you’ll score single- or Double-Kills against guys on the ground, Double- or Triple-kills against vehicles, and you can even boost for splatters when the need arises.

Objective games, especially those on smaller maps, can be great for gathering Sprees: enemies usually converge into clustered hot zones, such as with King Of The Hill or Oddball, making it easier to spam grenades and fire into the crowd; and enemies often become so focused on the objective that they stop playing defensively, racing out in the open toward the waypoint, and surprised when you ambush them before they get there. (Don’t go into the Hill, or grab the Oddball yourself: That’s a sure way to get fragged yourself. You’ll be trading some scoring points in the game for the chance to earn a sizable cRedit bonus by the end of the day.)

Avoid Juggernaut games, however; unless you’re the Jugs himself — in which case you’ve got a great chance to Spree. More likely, though, you’ll go through the entire match without a single kill, let alone five.

If you’re really desperate, head into Invasion. There’s actually a Medal called a Spawning Spree, in which you allow a teammate to spawn on you five times in a row without dying. Retarded? Yes. But it’ll notch you toward your Challenge. Just keep yourself away from the “territory” zones but in a tactically useful spot, and your teammates will thank you for it.

Just for reference, here’s the list of Spree types you’ll find among the Halo Reach medals. Most have three levels (5/10/15), though straight kills measure up to 40 (“Unfrigginbelievable!”).

Assists

Driving

Grenade Stick

Hammer

Infection

Juggernaut

Kills

Laser

Shotgun

Sniper

Spawn

Splatter

Sword

Zombie Killing

(Note that Hail To The King, although awarded for five kills within the Hill, does not itself count as a Spree medal, and so won’t register a second point in your Challenge count beyond your standard Spree.)

COOK ‘EM, CLEAN ‘EM

This Challenge is why you’ll see so many people jetpacking through Multiplayer today. If you’re a seasoned jetpacker, you won’t need any advice from here to score your kills; if you’re not, it’s still going to be easy as hell.

To earn the Firebird Medal — and thus notch a kill toward the Daily Challenge — you only need to be airborne from the moment you fire your final shot to the moment the game registers the kill; you don’t have to actually be jetpacking the entire time you’re in the firefight.

That means you can move and fight as you always do, and simply hit the jeckpack as you take aim for your killshot. (Which, in fact, is precisely what we recommend — it’s dead simple, and you’ll hardly have to change your fighting style at all.) In fact, you can even be just an inch aboveground, with barely any daylight between the floor and your boots, for your Firebird Medal to register.

It’ll also register with melees, assassinations, and weapons like Hammers and Swords, and with those weapons you’ll even lunge pretty much the same as if your feet still touched the ground. Again, just hit the jetpack the moment before you strike, and the Challenge point will register.

It won’t register, however, if you’re not actively “thrusting” when you make your kill; finish him off while you’re in freefall and you’ll score an ordinary kill, not one that makes progress toward the Challenge. So, you know, make sure you’re thrusting when you, ah, unload.

Since you only need 10 kills, Rumble Pit remains your best bet, since you can take them all in a single game — there’ll be that many more enemies over most Team games, and you’ll have more chance to pocket some cleanup kills.

Unless you’re an experienced jetpacker, avoid the larger, open maps (Powerhouse, Forge World) in favor of tighter, smaller ones (Sword Base, Zealot, Countdown), even if that sounds counter-intuitive. It’s real easy to get shot out of the sky if you don’t know what you’re doing, and a close-quarters map allows you to fight almost normally, jetpacking for a moment only as you close the deal.